Well, it’s been about three months since the last update, and the only reasons I space my updates is because
1) there isn’t much to tell
2) I’m woefully lacking on pictures
3) I have no time
4) I have no energy

You would think that number three wouldn’t be the case since I’m at home all day every day with the girls. But twin one year-olds take up more time than you would think! I’m usually ready for bed by 9:00 every night. They just take so much out of me; and here I am wanting MORE kids!

So updates…Eva is now walking and has been for a couple of months. I was worried she would pull even further away developmentally from Abigail, but it seems like In the last two months a lightbulb has clicked for Abigail. I remember the shock that ran through me one day when I was on the computer, and I turned around and she had propped herself into a seated position. And since then she has mastered pulling up to a standing position, crawling, and cruising within a very short amount of time. I’m hoping she will be walking by summer; she has just sped off on physical development.

Feedings are a different issue. I imagine the girls will always be terrible eaters. At least we aren’t regressing, but weight gain is still quite slow. I’m still working with our feeding specialist and now we have a pediatric nutritionist who comes as well just to brainstorm and see if I can’t squeeze in any more calories. She had actually asked me to keep a feeding record (which I’ve been doing since the girls came home from the NICU) and after she analyzed it she concluded we are doing pretty much everything we can to keep these girls stuffed like thanksgiving turkeys. 🙂 Eva is thankfully transitioning to table food quite well (with some strange foods she loves: pickles, onion rings, Sonic fried mozzarella sticks) and I’m making banana bread weekly since she is pretty fond of it. Abigail, however, is having a rougher time. She still eats only purées since she gags and coughs on table food. I know she will get there eventually; it may just take a little extra time. Both girls are still on bottles as they haven’t really figured out sippy cups yet, and they still take formula rather than milk because formula is higher in calories. They don’t seem to mind it. And as far as sippy cups go, I’ve thankfully had my friend Shawnah offer us to try every sippy cup they own to see which ones the girls take to, and right now we are fighting lots of “battles” so the sippy cups are a bit lower on the priority list. 🙂

We are still in lockdown mode and hopefully will be done by May; I can’t believe it’s been 5 months! Our lockdown may get extended because RSV, flu, and viruses in general hit really late this year. And they have been VICIOUS. I’ve read of so many posts on Facebook about moms whose kids had to use inhalers, nebulizers, etc. just to keep the symptoms at bay. My own niece wound up in the hospital for almost a week because of RSV. I know some people though we were being extreme, and even we were starting to relax a little on restrictions when everything hit. Needless to say we have tightened those restrictions back up. We’ve come so far, we don’t want to jeopardize anything. The girls, amazingly enough, haven’t been sick all winter. Kevin and I have, but not the girls. And thankfully my friend Shawnah makes a good effort to make sure I get out of the house at least ONCE every couple of weeks. 🙂

The one area where we could use prayers is for sleep. I used to tell people that the girls were great sleepers, and not really to brag about how OUR kids were good sleepers, but more like, “We’ve had SO much to deal with (feedings, weight gain, physical therapy, developmental delays, not to mention all the oxygen, medicine, and PUKING we had to endure when they came home) that it’s such a relief God has been merciful to us in this one area.” Well, that’s no longer the case. For some reason Abigail is going through a period of teething combined with separation anxiety, because when we try to put her down for naps or bedtime she screams and cries and eventually ends up throwing up. Poor Kevin has had more success getting her to sleep (he just rocks her until she passes out) but he has also insisted on getting up with her if she wakes up in the middle of the night. It has left us all very tired, and we are hoping she gets over this very soon so that we can ALL enjoy our sleep!

Thank you all for your continued support. We do see the light at the end of the tunnel, so we are definitely improving! I would love to see/hear from you all. Some of my days can get quite long. 🙂

So for those of you who regularly read this blog, this is the post to which I previously referred that will explain how I made the gifts for the grandparents. I wish I could claim credit for every aspect of it, but alas, I cannot. The final product, though, is all my own and came about as I was mulling on Christmas presents while showering one day. While perusing Pinterest one fine day I found this tutorial for a present a lady did for her parents. If you don’t want to click the link, the basic gist is that she created vertical wood boards, pasted a picture of each kid with their spouse at the top, and then under each picture pasted individual pictures of each grandchild associated with that spouse. It was a wonderfully cute idea; however I didn’t like how limiting it was. What if there were more grandkids later? Then you’d have to do THE WHOLE THING all over again! In both mine and my husband’s families it is most likely that there will be more grandkids in the future (Lord willing) so I didn’t want to make something that would take a huge amount of time and end up being outdated in a month (a likely possibility as my sister-in-law is 7 months along.) I needed something that would allow for ease and flexibility. So this is what I came up with:

My mother's gift

My mother-in-law's gift...these came out better than I hoped!

There’s only three grandkids in my family, hence why my mother’s gift is so much smaller. What can I say? The Menicuccis know how to reproduce. 🙂

So here’s the how to: You will need…

1 wood board (you can get fancy ones at Hobby Lobby but I just used a plain old wood one that my husband had in our garage…I just recommend it be sturdy enough to hold quite a bit of weight)

4×4 tiles for each picture

Mod Podge

Some small and large paint brushes

Clear spray paint

Acrylic paint

Picture hooks

Picture frame backings (for hanging the board)

Ribbon

Hot glue gun

For the tiles portion of the project, I’m going to direct you to The Frugal Girls’ Blog on how to make photo coasters. I followed their instructions on how to do this for the tiles portion, although I don’t think I used as many layers of the clear spray paint as they did because icy drinks wouldn’t be going on my tiles. I think I only used 3 layers, which was plenty. And despite what they say it only took a couple of hours for my spray paint to dry in the garage, not the full days she elaborates.

The next step is to add the hooks to the tiles. If you plan on having more than one row you will obviously need a hook at the top and bottom of each tile.

The hooks for the tiles

Gorilla Glue

I found the hooks at Lowe’s for dirt cheap, and my first run through I tried using Gorilla Glue that I also found at Lowe’s to adhere the hooks to the backs of the tiles. It did not work so well.

How to glue the hooks to the tiles

Gluing all the hooks at once is super easy and super fast

Once I started using the hot glue gun the hooks adhered MUCH better, although I did add an extra layer with the Gorilla Glue just for more support and peace of mind. Be careful with the Gorilla Glue as it expands as it dries…if you add too much you will have a huge clump of glue on the back of your tile. But once you add the hooks your tiles are done.

For the wood board portion I followed this tutorial about how to transfer fonts you like onto wood…there’s lots of different tutorials out there on how to do this, and it worked pretty well. I first painted my board black (of course) then printed out the words using Ambiente as my font and size 400 as my size. I think I used size 325 on my parents’ board. Then I just followed the tutorial using white paint.

The finished board

The other finished board with the hooks screwed in. I screwed them in by hand...way easy!

Simple, huh? After the paint was dry I screwed the same type of hooks I had glued to the backs of the tiles into the bottom of the wood board. Then I cut ribbon equal lengths and one for each tile and presto! My gift was done. It was so easy, really inexpensive, and a huge hit with both my mother and my mother-in-law. And it’s ready for future grandkids!

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment. My nice yahoo account always lets me know when one of you posts something. 🙂

A belated Merry Christmas to you all! It certainly has been a crazy year for us, but we are so blessed that it really did go as smoothly as it did. I haven’t been updating on here as much as I should, and for that I really do apologize. The girls, projects, Christmas, has kept me quite busy.

So for a quick update on the girls: well, they are still pretty small. Weight gain has by far been our hardest battle. Last time we weighed the girls a week ago Eva was finally over 14 lbs, and Abigail was over 12 lbs. Those are good numbers for us! The big challenge isn’t necessarily to get them to eat more volume-wise, it’s to fit more calories into what they WILL eat. We’ve had a pediatric nutritionist sit down with us and go over everything we can do to add calories…I think I’ve gone through more olive oil by adding it to the girls’ food than I normally use when cooking! It’s actually these added calories that have really spurted the weight gain to become quicker than it has been in the past. And truthfully, the girls are very very healthy for being so premature. Our doctor has reiterated this over and over. They are just small, which according to recent articles on preemies is pretty normal for babies born so early. Kevin and I will just have very petite daughters. It certainly comes in handy whenever I need to pick up both girls simultaneously. 🙂

Both girls still receive physical therapy on a regular basis, although we suspect Eva may not need it much longer. I was hoping she would be walking by Christmas, but she is just so darn cautious! She just needs a little confidence that she can do it, because we think she certainly can. And Abigail can sit up on her own now. She’s still quite a bit delayed, but the physical therapist believes a lot of it is due to her small size and slow weight gain, and not something like cerebral palsy. And boy, is she a talker! She just loves to gab and chatter away. She’s actually right on target for her adjusted age on everything except gross motor skills (sitting, crawling, walking, etc.) and she will catch up eventually.

We are once again on “lockdown” for the winter because of RSV, although thankfully it isn’t nearly as bad this year as it was last year. The girls can leave the house and go to other homes, they just can’t be around any kids or sick adults this winter (although we did make an exception for Christmas, as long as both families were healthy…and they were.) It’s been a little hard to be stuck home all day every day as my mom was sick for a while…it took it’s toll on me last week as I had some breathing issues and wound up in the ER. My doctor and the ER staff don’t know why I was having trouble, but we are all starting to suspect that the stress is doing some dirty work to me physically, although mentally I really don’t feel stressed at all. For those of you who knew me in high school, THAT was ten times worse than what I call “stress” now! I think the Lord has mellowed me considerably since then, but perhaps my lungs don’t agree. Nevertheless, we are working on ways to help alleviate that a little for both Kevin and myself. Thankfully, this should be the last winter we have to do this. The girls have done so well health-wise and we certainly don’t want to play Russian roulette with their health.

Below are some pictures of the girls from this winter and Christmas Eve. I will be posting another blog soon about a Christmas present I did for my mom and mother-in-law for all you DIY crafters and Pinterest lovers out there. I’m quite proud how it turned out and the final project was born in my head while in the shower one day. I’m just glad all my sisters-in-law trusted me enough to do this! Oh, and the video below is of Abigail…I know I posted on Facebook that my girls must be Beatlemaniacs like myself because “na na na” is obviously from “Hey, Jude,” but I actually was able to catch Abigail on video singing it while it was playing!! I can’t tell you how excited that made me. 🙂

Well, it certainly has been a couple of months since I last posted! And really, the reason why is there hasn’t been too much to tell. Things have been going pretty well for us up until this past week when we all caught colds. For some reason it has definitely changed the personality of each girl. Fun-loving, devil-may-care Eva has been VERY needy, crying almost every time that she isn’t being held or entertained. As I told her daddy this morning, with twins it’s just not possible for me to do that. She is getting lessons in patience from the get go, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Anyway, she is developing just splendidly. Her physical therapist thinks that she’s acting her actual age developmentally instead of her adjusted age, which means she really is ahead of the ball game. It may mean she turns into a more adventurous type of personality, inclined to give me heart attacks at an early age! But we will trust the Lord that He will protect her in His perfect will. At least for now it’s still very cute. Even as I type this I’m watching her crawl towards the bookcase, which I’ve blocked with Pack n’ Plays, and she’s still managing to worm her way into the nooks and crannies to access Mama’s things. REALLY can’t wait for her to understand what “no” means. 🙂

Abigail, on the other hand, has become the happiest, most cheerful baby with this sickness. There was one day last week that I took her to my parents’ house so I could get some help, and she smiled all day, which made my dad pretty happy. She’s not quite where Eva is developmentally, but she is doing her fair share of talking and moving. She doesn’t crawl around like Eva, and she HATES tummy time no matter how much we try to encourage her to do it. At this point we’re not concerned because she’s still where she needs to be for her adjusted age. I ask the physical therapist every time if she’s happy with both the girls’ progress and she reassures me every time that at this point they are still fine. And the doctor is pleased with their health, too. They still struggle quite a bit putting on weight, which is a little difficult to understand because they eat pretty well. They may end up being small girls, which is fine with me unless they decide to become cheerleaders in high school, which means they’ll be the ones getting thrown and tossed. So it could backfire on us but right now it’s fine. 🙂 This fall/winter we will still have to be a little closed off since RSV will be in full force and the girls getting it could mean another trip back to the hospital and getting put back on oxygen. Thankfully it’s not the life-threatening deal it was this past winter. The girls being around other kids is the biggest no-no for these upcoming months, but healthy adults are fine. The fact that we’ve all been sick with colds and they’ve done pretty well is a good sign.

Since there’s really not much to report I’ll just go ahead and post some pictures and video. Is it silly mommy stuff? Yes, but if you’re looking for something to briefly entertain you then look no further. Really it’s just a testimony to how far God has brought both girls. We could always use prayer that He will keep them safe and healthy. We could also use prayer that we find a good church home soon. Those are my two requests. Love and blessings to you all!

Guilty!

We've moved into high chairs!

Momentarily distracted

A longsuffering look from Abigail as Eva investigates

Just like Mommy...happiest with a blanket!

Abigail wears her bib in an odd location

Crinkle nose!

Holding hands and playing nice when not allowed free reign to trample over each other

Hi, everyone. I know I’ve been neglectful about posting about the girls. I’m still hoping that this blog can be a way to educate people about what life with preemies is like, even as we inch closer and closer to a normal life. So here’s the latest scoop since the last post: the main struggle that we deal with now is feeding. The girls still don’t eat very well, and even though we have them completely on Nutramigen (nice costly formula) they still throw up once or twice a day. We think this weekend all four of us caught a stomach bug from somewhere, so their vomiting has been a little worse, as well as their feeds. But we’re starting to get back to where we were. Unfortunately the girls have become even more selective about who they will eat with, and so Kevin and I are the only ones they will eat with. Sometimes they won’t really even eat with me. That means grandmas can’t really help out in this area any more. For that reason we decided to let them go back to their normal lives, even though we were so grateful for all they did for us. It also means that Kevin has decided to come home every three hours to help with feeds until we get them on track. We are so blessed that he is in a position that he has the flexibility to do that, although we are working hard to find a solution so that he doesn’t need to come home from work so often. We are hoping to talk to the doctor this week about adjusting the feeding schedule to find something that works for them AND us, whether that means feeding them less amounts more often so their tummies don’t get so full, or going longer stretches and getting more down at feeding times since their digestive systems are so slow and take more time to empty than normal full-term babies do. On the plus side, we are finally starting some cereal, and Eva really seems to like it! Abigail still needs to adjust some, but maybe she’ll like it in a week or two. That seems to be the time frame for everything with the girls: Eva does something, the next week Abigail does it, too. 🙂

I want to stress that even though feeding/weight gain is still a struggle for us, we are by no means in any kind of serious health risk for the girls. I’ll elaborate later on that. Abigail had her overnight pulse oximeter test again at the end of May, and we are now finally off of oxygen completely! It’s so nice not having to drag that oxygen tank everywhere. It’s also very nice not to have to deal with Apria anymore. A couple of weeks after she was taken off oxygen she had an appointment with her pulmonologist, who discharged her from his care, informing me that her chronic lung disease is completely gone. It was a huge shock to us, because we had assumed that she would deal with it for YEARS. And the information came just in time as the smoke from the Arizona fires began to blow over and cover Albuquerque. We still kept the air conditioner off as much as we could just to be safe, but it was nice to know that it wouldn’t affect her so greatly. Also, we’ve been having our home healthcare nurse make weekly visits to check on the girls, and this week should be the last week that she comes. She informed me last week that she would discharge us, too, because the girls are basically healthy. So we are taking teeny weeny steps in the right direction. We still have a physical therapist that comes twice a month to work with the girls to help them get where they need to be developmentally. They certainly don’t act their age! Eva has already figured out how to roll from her back to her tummy, but she hasn’t quite figured out how to get back onto her back. It’s amusing and annoying to have her keep flipping over onto her tummy, only to whine when she needs to be flipped back over. She’s figured it out a couple of times but isn’t really consistent about it. Abigail has been able to get from her tummy to her back, but not the other way yet. She’ll get there at some point. 🙂

I also just want to clarify that despite all the problems the girls have with feeds and gaining weight that it is not a cause of concern where we might be approaching the need for a feeding tube. The reason Kevin helps so much with feeds is that we are doing everything in our power NOT to have the girls need a feeding tube. I reached out to some friends about this, and my friend Sherry informed me of a feeding clinic in Dallas that takes on babies like the girls to work with them intensively and get them on track for eating without a feeding tube. So if we do get to the point where we need that we have decided we would rather take the girls to Dallas then to have them have a surgery that makes it even HARDER for them to develop normally. Instead of a 2-year catch-up (which we have right now) it would take 5-10 years to catch the girls up developmentally if they got feeding tubes. It seems like such an easy solution but trust me, it’s not the best one. I know people read this for info about the girls, and I know some of you are very concerned. God gave these girls to Kevin and I to make the best decisions for them, and people who burden us with their worries only make it that much harder for us. I keep in touch with our pediatrician at least once a week through email, and if there’s ever a concern on mine or the doctor’s part she is quite good about getting us in to see her. I still keep in touch with a couple of our NICU nurses, and I know I can always reach out to them if need be. I also stay in touch with friends who also have preemies and deal with the same struggles. The resources are out there, and we are making full use of them. I write these blogs to ENCOURAGE everyone about how the girls are doing, not to create more concerns. We always appreciate prayer, and right now that’s what we need from everyone. We trust the Lord; He has already done so much for us! He has preserved their lives for His purposes, so we need not fear.

I just want to also take this opportunity to remind everyone to be grateful for what you have, especially you parents. If your child is sick and fussy, be grateful that you don’t have to worry about things like oxygen and hospital visits. Be grateful that weight gain is something you don’t even have to think about. Be grateful for every poopy diaper you change, because it means your child is eating well enough to have poopy diapers. I can speak for all my friends with preemies that we have daily battles that most parents don’t even have to think about. I’m going to post a link here to an article I found on ABC.com about parents of preemies and the insensitive comments we have to deal with. And of course, I have pictures to share! Now that the girls have gotten out of the house a few more times we have more pictures with friends and family. Much love to you all for all your support. It means the world to us!

Hello, all! I figured it was time for another update on the girls. Not a whole lot has happened, but I sure would appreciate everyone’s prayers! I think last time I posted I was recounting how difficult it was to feed Eva and how concerned we were about her. I’m happy to say that she has COMPLETELY changed. She eats fairly well (for a preemie) and is now a whopping 9 lbs 8 oz! Yes, a bit low for a 3-month old, but in light of our struggles we are extremely proud of how well she is doing. She still vomits on a daily basis, but when she eats well it doesn’t hurt her quite so badly. I’m hoping we can get things under control in that area so she can truly become the Menicucci she was born to be! She has been sprouting lengthwise: 23 inches! I’m predicting a future basketball player. I’m really hoping the low weight and long legs doesn’t mean she becomes a Project Runway model, despite the fact that I love that show.

Abigail, on the other hand, took a bad turn pretty much on the same day Eva did her 180 degree turn around. For some reason, she just stopped wanting to eat. Suddenly it’s been such a struggle to get her to take a good amount of food. And we’ve tried EVERYTHING; we changed to slow-flow nipples on her bottles, we took out the rice cereal, we added Baby-dophilus powder to her feeds (although I’m suspecting that is keeping her from vomiting; that’s the one area she’s beating her sister in!), we give her glycerin suppositories every other day…only now is she starting to get back on track. But she had lost 12 ounces, and for a 9 lb baby, that’s not a good thing! The feeding clinic at Pres hospital has been pushing us to consider getting a g-tube for her to feed her that way, but the negative consequences of that are just so drastic that we are doing everything we can to prevent that. Poor Kevin has a better rapport with Abigail, so he has been coming home from work every 3 hours to feed her. It’s been hard right now, but we know in a few years we will look back and know we did all we could to give the girls the best opportunity possible for success. Anyway, respiratory-wise she is doing really well. The pulmonologist had us run a pulse oximeter test to see what her oxygen levels would be on room air. She did great! Except for when she was fussy and screaming; her levels dropped then. Of course, the doctor can only analyze the data he receives so he told us to leave her at 1/32 oxygen flow, which is just one step above room air. We think she’s ready to come off, but hopefully before June both girls will be off oxygen!

So please still pray for us! Especially for Abigail, as we really don’t want to have her get a g-tube. We’re a bit tired of specialists and medical professionals using scare tactics to persuade us to make choices that they would prefer for our daughters. It may take a while to get these feeding issues behind us, but we are determined to do everything we can to get them to gain weight the right way.

So how about that for a short update? And as promised, some pics of the girls. 🙂

Hello everyone. This blog hopefully won’t be too long. But I say that every time, don’t I? Things have not been going as smoothly as I like. I knew preemies were going to be hard, that I was going to be exhausted being locked up with them all day. But I thought that the difficulties would be administering meds and dealing with their crying. Well guess what? That’s the easy stuff!

So no surprise; twins are a lot of work. But I’m really blessed that the girls are both really good babies. Fussy at times, yes, but mostly happy and pretty much healthy babies. And get this: they already sleep through the night!! We usually feed them at 8:00, put them down at 9:00, get them up for one more feed at 11:00, and put them down for the night. They usually sleep until at least 6:00, sometimes even until 7:00. And we love it! Sometimes Abigail wakes a bit fussy, but Eva is a tremendously good sleeper. So we really lucked out with that, because things could be that much harder. I’ve heard stories of mothers who religiously feed their babies every 2 hours for months and months, and God bless those women. They will have a fabulous milk supply, very little sleep, and toddlers who struggle to sleep at night without food. OK, I’m hypothesizing on all of that but I’m not going to be the one to put it to the test. I like my sleep, thank you very much!

Our main struggle right now is feedings. The basic gist is that they both have started to take less and less milk with each feed. When we left the NICU, they were taking full bottles every time, roughly 3 ounces. We first saw Eva start to do it: taking between 1-2 ounces with each feed. It surprised us, because wouldn’t a growing girl be hungry and want to eat? I panicked and thought it might be an oral aversion, which is a definitely a worse problem, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. She sucks on her pacifier, and she really loves to suck on her hand. So we thought maybe the reflux was causing her so much pain that she didn’t want to eat. She still throws up on a daily basis. So I think reflux is part of it. Our doctor today told us that if it was terrible reflux, they’d be fussy all day and night. So now she is leaning towards it being a milk protein intolerance. I have to cut out all dairy from my diet so they don’t get anything that is making them sick. I had a tear in my eye as I watched Kevin eat my Ben and Jerry’s Half Baked ice cream last night.

Anyway, it looks like these eating problems might last a while and are quite typical for preemies. It’s a little bit nerve wracking because Eva has basically not gained any weight for a month. I think for normal newborns it would be extremely worrisome since it’s generally not typical. I’m not thrilled about Eva’s current state, but the nice thing is she is really pretty healthy otherwise. She is actually still growing (she grew 1/2 an inch in 4 days) and is right on track developmentally. She has a lot of trouble pooping on a daily basis (sorry to get so…honest) and we’ve tried numerous things on the doctors’ and nurses’ recommendations: diluted prune juice, Karo syrup, glycerin suppositories, oatmeal cereal…I’m only mentioning these things for moms who might be reading this and having the same issues. Trust me, it would be nice if I could find this information easily on the Internet but it isn’t quite that simple. Let me do what I can to spare an inkling percentage of you readers the pain and effort.

Abigail eats a little better, although she still vomits daily as well. Our biggest frustrations have been that they refuse to eat at times, but also that we have had trouble getting medical professionals to take our concerns seriously. I have called numerous times to speak to a doctor, only to be told I would either have to wait for a nurse to call me back in a couple of hours or wait eight hours for a doctor to call me back. It’s caused me to get nasty on the phone, and I don’t like myself when I’m nasty. I hate being the annoying mom that calls the doctor for every little thing, but a baby having problems eating, vomiting on a daily basis…I don’t think that’s normal. Maybe I’m wrong; this whole parenting thing is new for me, but the only time vomiting daily is normal is when you’re pregnant. After saying all of that, I should elaborate that over the past month I’ve spoken to a good half a dozen doctors about this issue, and while all of them wish this wasn’t happening, none of them are concerned that there are any pressing emergencies. I think at this point for me it’s has sunk in that the girls are going to have feeding issues for several months at the very least. I’m confident they will outgrow it (they are Italian/Hispanic after all; they need to learn to love food!) but the struggle is far from over. I wish there was a magic button or easy solution to this problem, but if I have learned anything from my own past medical experiences it’s that some of these things are bitter struggles that only serve to grow one’s character and faith in the Lord.

Changing the subject, so now here comes my little paragraph about things that I might construe as advice for anyone who thinks it’s helpful. If you have an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, download the BabyConnect app. It’s seriously the best app ever for keeping track of things like feeds, diapers, sleep patterns, nursing, medicines, etc. The data entry is a bit of a pain, but it’s worth it! Also, if your baby has reflux and has to sleep in an elevated position, use Bendy Bumpers. The NICU used them, and we loved them and bought some when we got home. They do the trick. Also, I know we are somewhat fortunate that the girls were preemies and could therefore come home on apnea monitors, and while the monitors are a pain, they do give us a huge peace of mind so we can sleep without worrying about SIDS. Eva is actually already off of hers, so we use the AngelCare monitors with the sensor pads under her mattress: it detects any lack of movement and goes off when it senses nothing for 20 seconds. It was a little pricey but definitely worth it in our minds. Again, these things are just tidbits that I’ve picked up from other moms who have generously dispensed advice. Well, the BabyConnect was my own discovery. It’s not for nothing that I’m a tech junkie. 🙂

I promise the next blog update will have some pictures. I’ve been quite busy, needless to say, and I haven’t taken too many pictures. I do have a video of each girl smiling; I’ll post them below. They are such cuties! I’m biased, I know. I hope I can be more diligent about letting you all know what’s going on. It actually took me about two weeks to write this blog. Half of the problem is I type these out on my iPad, and Kevin regularly steals my iPad to play Wheel of Fortune. So I guess I’ll have to get better at hiding. I think it’s a skill that mothers should develop anyway. 🙂